Commonsense Framework, Community Development Framework and Social Imagination - Coursework Example

Social Development Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Social Development Community development remains a contentious topic in terms of activities, practice, and the ideological part. Nonetheless, in attempting to understand social and community development, numerous principles or values have to be established. These values or principles reinforce the daily activities, commitments, and assumptions of community or social development. For community and social workers to succeed in their capacity, they should endeavor to understand how the values of social development determine practices and attitudes towards community development. According to Kenny (2006, p. 21), “The community development approach to the problem of disadvantage in our society [also] challenges the common sense framework in which the social problems are often conceptualized”. The following essay attempts to critically analyze the meaning of this statement in terms of the “commonsense framework”, “community development framework”, and “social imagination”. Kenny’s statement simply refers to the dominant notion or principle that underpins the idea of community development. This means that society has its preset conditions where each individual is tasked with taking control of their resources to enable them become successful or integrated in the community. The statement specifically refers to the idea that the disadvantage people in society require a kind of assistance in terms of changing social institutions and structures to benefit such people. Moreover, there is a commonsense or dominant way of evaluating social problems, where the typical response to social problems is reforming society. Social problems are responded by specifically addressing individuals facing the social challenges to ensure that they adapt to their situations. This means that society as a whole has not social problems, but it is the individuals in society that face numerous problems. According to Mendes (2008), this follows the ideology or concept of social justice. The social justice theory is based on three main principles including fairness in basic freedoms, equality for opportunity for progress, and positive judgment for the underprivileged for the guarantee of equality. These principles of the social justice policy have an element of the individual. Social problems are not generalized, but focused on an individual in society. However, Kenny, challenges this notion of the commonsense framework based on the contemporary approach of community development. Moreover, the “commonsense framework” is the overriding notion that social problems arise due to individual causes or determinants rather than causes from the society. Kenny, (2006), attributes the commonsense framework as ‘blaming the victim’ where the disadvantage is caused by the individuals facing the social problems. This has been the customary approach of dealing with the disadvantaged such as the Aboriginal problems, poverty, and domestic violence (Jamrozik, 2009). The commonsense framework is founded on the belief that each individual has an unlimited number of choices to make to determine their advancement or advantages. These choices are preset conditions in society and only require the effort of the individual to avoid social problems. For instance, most modern societies blame poverty on the inability of the poor to work and hard and use their skills to elevate their poverty. The issue of poverty is not justified from external forces or the lack of opportunity, but the sole failure of individuals facing poverty. Again, the commonsense framework is deeply rooted in the theory or concept of individualism. Advanced societies such as Australia are highly individualistic meaning that people tend to limit their overall relationships in society. This is where people tend to mind their own business as an accepted and practiced norm. There is reduced communication or interaction between individuals in society. The highly individualistic culture thus tends to justify social problems by blaming the victim. The common sources of problems facing the individual include psychological, pathology, moral defect, and biological issues. As such, society has sought numerous remedies including therapy, behavior modification, control, medical treatment, and moral exhortation. The statement speciallically illustrates that the commonsense framework of approaching social problems is weak compared to the community development approach. According to Kenny (2006), the community development approach pinpoints the reason of disadvantage in society in the rooted and regular inequalities of the social system. The key determinants of social inequalities are every day issues such as race, class, ethnicity, and gender (Mendes, 2008). Unlike the commonsense framework, the community development framework identifies flaws in the structures, beliefs, and institutions of the social system to cause societal problems for the disadvantaged. Indeed this is very true, since issues such as racism cannot be eliminated by focusing on individual approaches, but a focus on the structures, beliefs, and institutions that enabled the rise of such social challenges. There are numerous approaches that are used in modifying institutions, structures, and beliefs to guarantee social justice. For social problems to be addressed through the community development approach, social welfare stakeholders must challenge current structures in the social system, such as protesting or campaigning for tax policies that favor the rich. Empowering the disadvantaged through resourcing such as guaranteeing the Australian Aboriginals have lawful ownership of their traditional lands (Kenny, 2006). Another example is developing choices to victims such as enabling family violence victims to remain in their homes unmolested or seek refuge in a social welfare institution. This means that there is a need to evaluate social problems from the basis of inequalities in society. Power and differences are the main elements that help in identifying fundamental structures, institutions, and ideologies that underpin social inequalities. The community development approach is both a means of understanding and solving social problems. It challenges the individualistic approach of understanding and solving social problems. The individual approach of understanding social challenges is conservative and weak. This is because society goes way long than the individual as there are numerous elements that interact on different levels and require different approaches to understand and resolve social problems. According to (Ife, 2013, p. 59), the community development approach focuses on understanding and solving social problems through four different levels including the “individual, institutional reformist, structural, and post-structural levels”. On the individual level, the blame is laid on the victim. When it comes to the institutional reformist, the institutions mandated with addressing particular social problems are blamed such as courts, schools, and welfare department. These institutions may not be conducting their operations in an effective manner such as the discrimination of Aboriginal people in acquiring legal ownership of their native lands (Ife, 2013). In this case, the community development approach seeks to reform institutions through reorganization to enable better decision-making, prioritizing, as well as strategy implementation. Social institutions should also acquire increased resources to enable them fulfill their mandates effectively. In addition to the resources social institutions should also be expanded in terms of their services while social workers in social institutions should receive better training for effective service delivery (Ife, 2013). In the structural level, the blame of social problems is based on the social system. The social system is in terms of social welfare policies as well as structures. For instance, the inability to vote on contentious issues such as taxation and business compliance is critical for ensuring social justice and equality. In addressing this structural challenge, there is need for changes in the system through reforms. The structural level of community development is highly political in order to make changes to structural impediments of social progress. Moreover, it presents numerous challenges in developing social welfare approaches. As Carson & Kerr(2014), argue that the main issues in any social welfare systems is whether assistance or support should be universal or selective. The selective welfare system is based on offering support to the most disadvantaged members of the community to enable the meet their basic needs for an enhanced standard of living. However, the universal welfare system is based on the notion that all people in the community or country are entitled to welfare support such as offering free-child care support and free education for all irrespective of their standards of living or income (Carson & Kerr, 2014). For the selective system of welfare, resources are channeled effectively to the most disadvantaged, thus achieving increased effectiveness in reducing social problems (Carson & Kerr, 2014). The system also encourages members of the community to help themselves as individuals while ensuring that the burden of social problems is reduced effectively by reducing taxation to support universal systems that require a huge amount of resources. Nonetheless, the universal system is based on offering welfare support in a non-stigmatized manner. It also seeks to address the controversial nature of redistribution, allocation, and eligibility of social welfare. For instance, social welfare systems in Australia are considered to be liberal in that they are attributed to limited extents of universal allocations and limited efforts to reduce social inequality (Carson, et al,. 2014). In this case, the community approach requires the scrutiny of these social welfare systems that are directly related to how social problems are understood and addressed. In the post-structural level, blame is laid on the discourse or a kind of cultural adaptation in society including modernity, shared understandings, formation and accumulation (Ife, 2013). This is where social imagination comes to focus in terms of social workers and human service workers. The post-structural level is a construct of society passed down from one generation to the other. There are shared beliefs and norms that lay down the basic rules of understanding social problems. Social imaginations are the different discourses members of the society have come to learn and belief in their significance (Jamrozik, 2009). For instance, most males in society will imagine that it is normal to taunt or harass women especially when they are all alone. There is also a belief in men that violence is a manly feature that is not challenged in society. As such, there is increased dependency on social imagination to shape how members behave and act in the community. Even the social welfare system also contributes to the discourse of social imagination. For instance, most offences done in a group especially in the community context such as a protest or school setting often illustrate the development of different social discourses. For instance, accomplices in a violent act may receive lighter punishment than when only one individual is involved in perpetrating the violence. As such the social welfare system creates a discourse where members of society believe that acting as group to perpetrate violence is socially acceptable. Therefore, social imagination plays a critical role in enabling social workers and human service workers to understand how certain social problems arise (Jamrozik, 2009). Different approaches can be used to understand different social problems. However, it is important to ensure that social workers can relate to the social imagination of different communities. When they understand the different rules and beliefs shared by the community, they can then challenge the rules of each discourse to address social problems. Overall, social imagination is a significant approach of understanding the deeply rooted social problems especially in today’s modern world. In conclusion, Kenny’s statement challenges the notion of understanding and solving social problems from the perspective of the individual. The commonsense framework is based on using the individual member of society to understand and solve social problems. However, the community development approach challenges this framework by including others aspects of understanding and solving social problems. The additional elements to be considered include the institutions, structures, and ideologies that surround social problems. Social institutions may cause increased social challenges based on the ineffective delivery or distribution of welfare services. Moreover, the structures and systems of social welfare may not be aligned effectively to address social problems. In fact, they can be causes of social problems by focusing on the wrong or unimportant elements. Ideologies are also a major factor in understanding and solving social problems. These ideologies are as a result of social imagination that is developed in a manner such as that of cultural development. Understanding social imagination is critical for social workers for them to challenge deeply rooted ideologies and beliefs in society. For community and social workers to flourish in their capacity, they should attempt to understand how the values of community development determine practices and attitudes towards addressing social problems. References Carson, Ed & Kerr, L., (2014).  Australian Social Policy and the Human Services.  Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. Ife, J. (2013).  Community Development in an Uncertain World: Vision, Analysis and Practice. Port Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge University Press Jamrozik, A., (2009).  Social Policy in the Post-Welfare State.  3rd Edition. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson. Kenny, S., (2011).  Developing Communities for the Future.  4th Edition.  South Melbourne, Victoria: Cengage Learning.  [307.14 K36d.4] Mendes, P., (2008).  Australia’s Welfare Wars Revisited. Sydney: UNSW Press. Read More